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Monday, November 21, 2016

Looking back I there’s no doubt I was meant to be a Speech Language Pathologist.

It just took me a little while to realize it.

As a child, when my younger brother had difficulty
communicating due to recurring ear infections, I’m told I was the only one who
could understand him, often serving as his translator (“He wants a tissue!”)

But when I had the opportunity to observe the speech
therapist at my mother’s school I was less than enthralled. Little did I know
just how much more to our field there was than articulation drills.

So for a while I entertained I the idea of being a nurse. But
when I got to college and saw the amount of calculus involved (yikes!) I
promptly switched my major to psychology and upon graduation happily stumbled
into the growing field of behavior therapy.

Working with young children recently diagnosed with autism
fascinated me.I spent the next three
years doing in-home Applied Behavior Analysis including serving as a shadow
aide in classrooms, facilitating play dates, training families, and
collaborating with other professionals, including SLPs.

And man, the SLP’s had hands down the best gig.

Watching a child’s frustration fade as he finally got his
message across, witnessing the joy of her family as she spoke a new word – it
was thrilling!

I mean seriously what could be cooler than helping a child
communicate?

I applied and was fortunate to accepted to a program in my home of San Francisco. Although at the time the 3 and ½years of grad school seemed daunting, it went
by in a flash and I’ve never looked back. To this day I’m still thrilled with
each new skill acquired, no matter how small, enjoy collaborating with parents,
teachers, and other professionals and love that our field gives us the
opportunity to never stop learning. Transitioning from early intervention to
working with school-age and middle school students last year was a huge
learning curve but as SLP’s we thrive on those challenges, don’t we?

So that’s pretty much why I became an SLP. Well that and the
hugs. You can’t beat the hugs;)